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| Projects 2006 - 2007 Categories: Biology and medicine :: Engineering computer science and physical science :: Humanities :: Pre-college education BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE This collaboration brings together two projects using diverse web-based material to support biology laboratories in the classroom. INTERNET BioLab based in Sweden, extends the university laboratory experience to distance learning students via remote operation of laboratory equipment. At Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, the “Virtual Urchin” project uses sea urchins for a range of high school and college level laboratory activities. Through BIO-HOPE, Göteborg, Linköping and Stanford will create novel biology laboratory curricula by melding and expanding these two approaches. The team will produce online “integrated instructional units,” as outlined in the US National Research Council’s America's Lab Report (2005). The joint project will promote authentic and active scientific experiences by enabling students to ask research questions, propose hypotheses, conduct experiments, analyze data, and interpret results. The researchers anticipate that such experiences will engage students in the scientific method, promote scientific reasoning, develop interest in biological and scientific inquiry, and reinforce understanding of biological principles, as recommended in the U.S. National Science Education Standards Report (1996) and the Swedish Agency for Networks and Cooperation in Higher Education general guidelines (2003). The plans for year one include producing pilot modules and developing live video teacher training workshops. Case-Ex II: Case-Based Examination in Medicine and Healthcare During the last few decades there has been a shift of teaching methods in higher education from a focus on learning facts, toward a focus on problem-solving and conceptual understanding of principles. Innovative examination methods have lagged, however, sending contradictory signals to students about what is important to learn. The Case-Ex project started in 2005 to study how to implement new case-based assessment methods that test critical-thinking and problem-solving skills in medicine and teacher education. This assessment project grew from the use of Web-SP, a web-based simulated patient learning tool for medical and healthcare students. The overall aim of the Case-Ex project has been to study the adaptation of Web-SP simulated patient software for assessment of student learning. During year two, the research team will concentrate on the medicine and healthcare tracks, studying how to correlate assessment of student competencies using web-based versus live standardized patients. The team also will study how Case-Ex software might be enhanced to best facilitate the assessment of clinical reasoning skills and will focus on the difficult task of creating reliable scoring and grading methods for Case-Ex in Sweden and at Stanford. CNS Visual Perspectives Students entering the clinical phase of medical education have problems applying their knowledge of anatomy to clinical practice. The aim of CNS Visual Perspectives (CNS: VP) is to facilitate the retention of knowledge through pedagogical innovations, such as interactive and collaborative learning. CNS Visual Perspectives supports students and teachers in the learning and teaching of neuroanatomy. The software developed during the planning phase in 2005-2006 illustrates the spatial aspects of the human brain and allows interaction with the learning object. During year two, the research team will test whether the use of CNS: VP enhances students' motivation to learn neuroanatomy, increases comprehension of content and helps students to learn a complex anatomical structure. The team expects that students who apply deep learning approaches will perform better in tasks calling for three-dimensional perception. The promising results from the planning study indicated features of the software tool that need to be changed and added in order to improve and complete the educational application. The team will implement CNS: VP in ongoing neuroanatomy courses at Karolinska Institute and Stanford, and will present study results in peer-reviewed journals and at professional conferences. Gait E-Book: Effective Participatory Learning Using High Level Gait Simulation and Active Electronic Books This research study will bring modern object-oriented equation-based modeling and simulation technology (Modelica) into the learning process by providing students the opportunity to learn and experiment with physical phenomena in active electronic book courses. The electronic book will provide problem-based learning focused on human gait, which integrates physics, math, human biology and computer science. This collaboration between faculty at Linköping University and Stanford University will integrate the Modelica technology (Linköping) with motion analysis, gait simulation and visualization software (Stanford) and with the SPRING collaborative simulator at Stanford. The electronic active book software at Linköping will be integrated with the gait simulation models at Stanford for instructional use at both universities, and at several Swedish and US high schools. Learning Radiology in Simulated Environments II Simulation-based teaching methods have been widely adopted in hazardous professions such as aviation and the military, yet their use in medical education to date has been limited. During year one of Learning Radiology, the research teams created and evaluated learning through the use of computer simulations of radiographic examinations. The achievements include development and testing of the cervical spine and dental x-ray computer simulations with radiological technology students. The continuation of the project in year two will be divided into three parts. (i) Based on the results obtained from the “collaboration study,” the research team will analyze the large amount of data and interview the participants. (ii) Expansion of the ongoing study “spine simulator” to encompass a larger student base for testing and evaluation. (iii) Creating educational tools for better understanding of three-dimensional anatomies and their radiographic depictions by extending the project to the domain of complicated anatomy and development of dynamic 3D simulation. Remote University Network for Human Performance (RUN II) New fields such as bioengineering are exploring the role of the physical sciences in traditional biological approaches to problems, with exciting results in device innovation, medicine, and research biology. The integration of mathematics, biomechanics, and material sciences into the undergraduate biology curriculum will better prepare students for these opportunities and enhance cooperation among faculty and students at the university level. Remote University Network for Human Performance (RUN II) will study exercise science as the basis for introduction to this interdisciplinary program. This novel integrated approach also requires a new pedagogical approach. During the 2005-06 planning phase, the teams designed a model course that involves cooperative learning between students at Göteborg University and Stanford University. The course utilizes new technologies, encourages development of original research and relies on frequent self-assessment and reflective learning. During year two, the research teams will compare outcomes between this model course and a more traditional didactic format. The teams also will assess the effectiveness of web-hosted virtual environments. This work will lead to a network of original faculty and student research in exercise science and pedagogy, as well as provide the opportunity for implementation of the model course in more advanced college training levels and in pre-college programs. Virtual Interdisciplinary Biology Education (VIBE II) Information concerning AIDS, infectious diseases, allergies, and vaccines penetrate the daily lives of people around the world, yet there are insufficient pedagogic resources in immunology to prepare future generations of informed individuals, researchers, clinicians, and health care workers. Immunology is a conceptually challenging content to learn because both theoretical and practical applications are required to understand the complex interplay of the disciplines involved: cell biology, physiology, genetics, medicine and modern molecular biology. In addition, the specialized vocabulary, visualization of complex mechanisms, difficult concepts, and problem solving across disciplines can lead to misconceptions that discourage students. During year two, the Virtual Interdisciplinary Biology Education (VIBE) project will complete its open-access immunology website containing interactive multimedia for undergraduate students at Stanford, Umeå, and Uppsala. A new educational track for high school biology students in Northern California and at the Viktor Rydberg Gymnasium in Sweden will be implemented, as well. The evaluation will focus on students’ conceptual understanding of basic immunological processes and methods with animations; critical thinking skills; problem-solving skills with real-world interactive simulations; and increased motivation for studying science. ENGINEERING, COMPUTER SCIENCE, AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE Two long-standing traditions in art and design education are the Idea Log and the studio critique. Project-based design courses feature interplay between individual idea creation and refection, and group discussion, brainstorming and presentations. During year one of the ideas project, Stanford-Sweden faculty team performed research to support the fluid movement between individual and group design activity through an iDeas learning ecology comprised of three elements: the iDeas notebook, the iDeas blog, and the iDeas wall. In this second year, the collaborative team will perform further research into learning ecologies to support student design activities in computer science courses. Design learning courses feature interplay between time for individual ideation and reflection, with time for group presentation, discussion, and brainstorming. The iDeas notebook augments the traditional physical design notebook with electronic capture. The iDeas browser extends the concept of electronic portfolios with integration of sketches, text, digital photographs, and other media. The iDeas wall provides an interactive surface for students to collaboratively create, present, and share design content. Enabling design ideas to move more seamlessly between the world of bits and the world of atoms will enable students to spend more time on the intellectual task of design thinking and less time on the mechanical task of technology tinkering. Automatic electronic capture and web-based sharing of design content will provide additional channels for peer-to-peer interactions, student - teacher discussions, and learning. REALSIMPLE II: Combining Physical Reality with Simulations in Pedagogical Laboratory Experiments For all its promises, ICT in teaching is sometimes seen as an opportunity to save money on student laboratories by using computer simulations in the classroom. Contact with physical reality, however, remains essential for conceptual understanding. The REALSIMPLE project will create a set of teacher resources for developing inexpensive student laboratory sessions during which real physical experiments and pedagogical computer-based simulations of the same systems run in parallel and are interconnected. This approach illustrates both the behavior of the real systems and the degree of validity of various numerical simulations. Simulations can run rapid processes in slow motion, calling attention to subtle details that escape the eye or ear on the real system. Thus, the traditional lab bench is enhanced, rather than replaced. Music acoustics is an ideal “umbrella topic” for this mode of learning. Young people understand and appreciate music. Strings, pipes, and membranes are readily arranged in the laboratory. The topic of music scales easily from first approximations of linear systems, to advanced treatments of non-linear, stochastic and/or chaotic motion, to complex radiation and transmission. This project aims to promote the physical reality aspects of physics, math and music in pre-college and university teaching. A secondary goal is to improve course curricula in music acoustics at Stanford and KTH. Tech-IQ: Technology Mediated Interdisciplinary Questioning The educational challenge of Tech IQ is to assist students in developing an integrated understanding of interdisciplinary, project-based teamwork through active participation in inquiry. To do this, the team will create an innovative computer-mediated and question-driven learning experience. Architecture, engineering, and management students engaged in project-based learning typically apply their knowledge in discipline-centric inquiry, and lack the opportunity to develop general interdisciplinary inquiry abilities in a real-world project context. The research team will design, implement, test, deploy, and assess the Tech-IQ learning interaction experiences as a pedagogic method based on a framework of six degrees of question exploration in support of effective interdisciplinary questioning in PBL. The team will use an information and communication environment that leverages two of the most pervasive cognitive technologies, i.e., speech and sketching. Using these tools will assist learners to articulate and represent their thinking and questioning and make their level of understanding more visible, tangible, clearer, sharable, and re-usable. These tools will be deployed in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction Management Global Teamwork course offered during 2006-07 at Stanford in collaboration with KTH in Stockholm, Chalmers University and IT University in Göteborg. HUMANITIES The future of cultural identity lies in the past. Vital relationships with the cultural past are increasingly regarded as crucial components of community health in a “globalist” world. This project aims to develop and test learning tools and environments for enhancing co-creative exploration and learning in cultural heritage. The project team views this field as one that runs through many humanities disciplines. The project's particular expertise and focus is archaeology and classical studies. The research team will develop innovative pedagogy that encourages collaborative exploration of cultural heritage, including collaborative authoring software and ICTs, which enable effective project-based and performance-based learning. During this planning year, the team will evaluate current experience of such pedagogy and will present and analyze two new experimental pilot classes. These courses cover pre-college, undergraduate, postgraduate and professional students. The project aims to test the proposition that learning environments in the humanities can be markedly enhanced by innovative pedagogy that is designed to reach beyond purely academic disciplines into community heritage by addressing interests in cultural and personal identity. The research team will use qualitative analysis of student interactions (through interviews and case studies) of the experience and outcomes of the pilot classes. Developing Intercultural Competencies through Collaborative Rhetoric In a globally connected world, teachers need to know how to instruct students in intercultural rhetoric. The team from Örebro University and Stanford will design, implement, and assess a curriculum devoted to the development of intercultural competencies through collaboration and effective use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The overarching goal is to build meta-knowledge about the critical role that intercultural competence can play in global communication and international relations. The research team will design curricular materials on intercultural competencies. Students at Örebro and Stanford will use these tools to work in globally distributed teams, presenting research to international audiences and exchanging reflections through innovative ICTs. The transnational collaboration will culminate with a virtual student conference, while instructors will construct a global digital portfolio of materials and a Wiki. The research team will assess study outcomes and host an International Symposium. This study will produce a research paper to document globally distributed team collaboration and will identify best practices and technology investments for future projects in South Africa, Canada, and Australia. PRE-COLLEGE EDUCATION There is a global concern that pre-college students are not learning mathematics in schools. One of the important aspects of the problem is that students fail to develop a good understanding of basic mathematical concepts in elementary schools, and thus lack the foundation to work with more-complex mathematical concepts in upper grades. This study will examine the teaching and learning of the basic and critical mathematics concepts, place value and multi-digit subtraction, in the United States and Sweden. The research team will design a curricular framework for a conceptually-sound approach to support the teaching and learning of these topics, grounded in research literature of children’s learning of math concepts. The framework will articulate the connections between conceptual learning goals of multi-digit subtraction with important features of teaching approaches, including visual representations, types and order of problems, and ways to address typical student errors and challenges. It will help advance professional thinking concerning the learning of math concepts, and will be adapted and used in different classrooms contexts to guide and allow different teaching approaches. SiMErgency II: A Web-Based Simulation of Medical Emergencies for Training High School Students New and innovative methods of training people to perform CPR are being sought because of the documented lack of retention of the resuscitation actions presented in traditional courses. During year I of this research study, the project team developed virtual case-based scenarios to train high school students in CPR. SiMErgency II will validate the use of this new method of CPR training in high school curricula, incorporating the 2005 recommendations of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) for CPR training. Validation studies with high school students will focus on knowledge recall, improved individual and team performance, confidence and self-efficacy and motivation. These recall, performance and process assessments, particularly important to simulation studies, will be related to gender and then evaluated as unique assessment features of SiMErgency II. Studies in Sweden will be extended beyond high school students to CPR training for medical students. SiMErgency II will enable the integration of Virtual CPR into the curricula of all participating educational institutions. Teachable Agent Games in Math (Planning Grant) Children often enter school unprepared to learn mathematics because they have not had sufficient informal experiences with core conceptual structures. This study will design a suite of mathematical games the target core math concepts relevant to third through sixth grade instruction. The mathematical games combine proven pedagogical technologies from each institution: (1) An engaging “math game” where children manipulate spatial models of mathematical operations, and (2) Teachable Agent software, where students learn by teaching a computer agent that can then play the game. The software will be evaluated in an experimental design that tests how well it prepares students to learn from subsequent school-based lessons. If successful, the planning grant will yield data on how to elaborate and design games that students can play at home and over the internet, so they are better prepared to learn once they enter school. |
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